


Blood of the Covenant

by BasicallyAnIdiot



Series: Transit Drabbles [4]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: But tries to help him anyway, Drabbles, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Uncle!Yuan, Yuan realizes Kratos is a moron
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21582862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicallyAnIdiot/pseuds/BasicallyAnIdiot
Summary: Yuan expected there to be consequences from helping an old friend.Earning the honourary title of, “Uncle” was not one of them.
Relationships: Anna/Kratos Aurion
Series: Transit Drabbles [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1489922
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	1. Drabble 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this came about from an unintentional prompt on Tumblr where someone mused about how nice it would have been if Yuan had supported Kratos and Anna through their relationship. 
> 
> ~~... Okay look, I can't help myself because that is a great idea and wouldn't it be a fun fix-it idea to play around with?~~

**Drabble 1**

Of the potential allies Yuan considered for his little rebellion, Kratos hadn’t made the list. It hadn’t been a hard decision- the fire that had burned in his friend had been smothered under the dust of centuries. All that was left behind was a shell with the face of a friend. Just a hair better than the mindless drones running around to bring about the destruction of the Great Seed.

The millennia had crushed the human spirit that had once roused armies, and Kratos was just another person Yuan mourned. His name tacked on to the bottom of the list of friends lost. 

Or so he had believed.

Then Botta arrived in his office, flustered in a way Yuan had never seen the man. The report was professional and worrying. Someone had leveled part of a Ranch, freed the slaves, kidnapped the Angelus Project and was in the wind like a ghost. The Ranch Kratos was supposed to be inspecting. 

In the fallout, security at the other Ranches had doubled and a manhunt was in pursuit. Getting their people into Cruxis would be challenging for a few years- perhaps just shy of impossible- but the loss of a fully operational Ranch was pennies to loss of the Angelus Project. More than one person had placed everything on the success of that endeavour. Heads would _fly_. 

Trust his friend to do more damage to Cruxis in one night than Yuan had managed in a thousand years.

“Ah,” He mused aloud. Botta shifted under the levity of Yuan’s tone. As if this didn’t run the risk of completely upending everything they were working towards. “There he is.”

His second-in-command frowned. “Who is?”

A chuckle escaped. “A heartstrong moron more stubborn than a mule.” It had been… almost three thousand years at least since Yuan seen that level of inspired recklessness? In the ruins of a house belonging to someone he was supposed to recruit. They had still been inside as the manor burned to the ground, while all their slaves had been miraculously outside. Mithos hadn’t found it as amusing as Yuan had- and that time the punishment stuck. Kratos had toed the line since. “Do we have any idea where he is heading?”

Botta, to his credit, didn’t comment on the familiarity. “Most recent reports have him and the woman fleeing towards the west.”

Interesting. There was nothing in the west that would be of help to a pair of fugitives. In fact there was nothing interesting at all except for Iselia, birthplace of Sylvarant’s Chosen and the only known home of a dwarf-

Yuan hummed, turning the thought over and over. He had known Kratos long enough to see a foolish, impulsive action for what it was. Something snapped at that Ranch, something that had pushed his friend over the edge. So far over he would kidnap-.

Ah. There was the last piece. He scoffed at the thought. “It wasn’t a kidnapping.” 

“Sir?”

Yuan stood up, plans adjusting. For the first time since he had formed the Renegades, a piece was up in the air. A powerful piece, one he had thought to be locked down to the Cruxis. One that had a specialty in upheaving the status quo. 

Mithos had lost a piece and now Yuan had a chance to snap it up. His cloak settled on his shoulders like an old friend. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed his sword. “I said it wasn’t a kidnapping.”

No: it was the _worst_ rescue attempt Yuan had ever heard of.


	2. Drabble 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finding Kratos is significantly easier than Yuan anticipated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we’re back! 
> 
> I’ve been musing if Kratos and Anna would end up settling in Sylverant or Tethe’alla. On the one hand, staying keeps closer to canon. On the other, Zelos, Sheena and Lloyd growing up together.
> 
> Decisions, decisions.

**Drabble 2**

As Yuan had hoped, Kvar's lack of experience tracking slowed the manhunt considerably. The Grand Cardinal had no idea of what humans were capable of, nor of how wily they could be when pushed to the edge. Each day had the escapees slipping further and further away. Even so, the boon of Kvar being point for the operation quickly turned into a double-edged sword; for all his arrogance, Kvar learned fast. Time was short. 

It helped that he knew his friend and that, together, they had come up with the various evasion tricks he saw now. Some changes here and there, but the basic principles applied. Throw a stone, and move silent when the enemy looked at where the stone landed, instead of where it came from. While the Desians chased ghosts in the local towns, Yuan turned to the nearby forests and glens. Usually the most dangerous one he could find. 

Sheltered in the valley of a mountain, this tree grove was one such area. Full of monsters and bandits, but no real threat to his friend. A river ran nearby, bubbling and happy, and the area was far from the nearest road. Desians had been seen a town over, causing a ruckus in the market place. Rumours of a mercenary and his companion abounded. 

Yuan stumbled across the Angelus Project first as she was picking wild mushrooms. She was... pretty, but not the beauty Yuan had expected. He would have mistaken her for ordinary if it wasn’t for the fact she must have had some part in breaking Kratos free of his apathy. But aside from that, there wasn’t any indication of why Kratos would abandon everything he had left, crumbs as they were. Even if she had been beautiful at one point, her stay at the Ranch left her with hollow cheeks and nearly sickly paleness. 

Stepping into the space he had just enough time to duck the rock thrown at his head with enough force to dent the tree behind him. Surprise slowed him down, and a dagger pinned his cloak to said tree just under his arm. 

Fierce brown eyes glared at him across the clearing with the hatred of a thousand desert suns, more daggers in her hands. That she had the will to fight, to challenge him, after everything spoke volumes. Yuan had skimmed the stolen reports for the Angelus Project: she would not have been treated kindly during her time at the Ranch. Of all the humans tried for compatibility with the Angelus Project, she was the only one who survived. It said something, considering Kvar was hung up on suffering as the key to the exspheres.

She shifted, bracing her feet for a fight. “Who are you and what do you want?”

Her travelling companion hadn’t shown up yet- and unless something drastic had changed Kratos would sooner slay him where he stood than listen. Yuan raised his hands in the air, “Peace. I mean no harm.” 

The woman’s eyes narrowed. Her grip on the daggers tightened, “Again, who are you?”

As if on cue, Kratos emerged from the undergrowth like a wraith, slipping into the space with a bare sword and darken expression. About as warm a welcome as Yuan had expected. Curiously though, the woman shifted her body enough to keep both of them in her line of sight. She didn’t trust Kratos. Interesting. 

“Kratos.” Idly Yuan pulled the dagger out of his cloak, briefly lamenting the damage. With a toss it impaled the ground up to its hilt. “You’ve made quite a mess of things.”

“Yuan.”

The woman shifted again, a dagger in each hand as her eyes flicked back and forth between watching Kratos and him. She took a step back, tensed ready to bolt. No trust at all. A wise human indeed. 

To the reason of his visit before someone got skewered. Yuan tossed a small item at his old friend. “Appreciate the difficulty of retrieving that without anyone noticing.”

The sword between them never wavered, never lowered, as Kratos caught the piece. He glanced at the item, frowning softly before passing it to the woman. Impressively, she accepted it without dropping a dagger. The dark expression on his face had lightened to something unreadable. 

She inhaled sharply, warm brown eyes staring at Yuan as she spoke. The tremble in her hand only slight. “It’s a Key Crest.”

“A prototype,” Yuan added in the quiet, careful to leave his hands out in the open and away from the hilt of his weapon, “meant for a Cruxis Crystal and adapted for Angelus. It should buy you time.”

The sword was still out, lowered, but held with a readiness and by a man once famed for his lightning quick reflexes that had felled more than one enemy. Kratos had always been the better swordsman between them. Mithos had been smart to seek him out all those years ago. “Why?”

Yuan expected that question, though he hadn’t found an answer that could encompass everything that had transpired over the centuries. At the end of the day, to defeat Mithos, to restore the Great Tree, to break the final seal- Kratos would have to die. All attempts to find a different way, another path had been met with failure. The libraries Yuan had torn apart, the temples found and lost- nothing. Not a hint of how to fix this. 

But there was no one to take Kratos’ place either. No summoner to make pacts with the other summon spirits. No one strong enough to challenge Mithos and bring the Cruxis empire low beneath their heels. There was time still, no matter how it slowly it slipped past, drifting closer and closer. It was only true gift Yuan had to give.

Honesty then, for an old friend he would one day strike down. He let his arms fall to his sides, “This world... isn’t what Martel wanted.”

Kratos closed his eyes for a moment, likely understanding everything Yuan wasn’t saying, then sheathed his sword. “You’re betraying Yggdrasil.” A simple fact. Yuan didn’t bother denying it. By interfering in this matter he had already shown his intentions.

The human woman looked between them, then to the Key Crest in her hand. Her daggers slipped away, and she picked up the basket of mushrooms. She glared at both of them, “I think this is a conversation better had over a hot meal. See you both at camp.” 

Without any further preamble, she turned sharply on her heel and disappeared into the undergrowth. Her companion watched her go before glancing back at Yuan, a wry smile on his face- one that Yuan hadn’t seen in years. “We better follow before she thinks we’re not.” 

Yuan arched his brow, “She seems willful… ”

A sound he had thought had been crushed from his friend surprised him- a laugh. Short and low. “You have no idea.” 

It was later, around a campfire with a clear night sky overhead, that Yuan learned the woman, Anna, made a hobby out of hunting down Desians the moment Kratos turned his back. She was actually very good at it- a young human woman, on her own, apparently engrossed in her task in the woods, like mushroom picking, the picture of an easy target. Yuan had been lucky she realized he wasn't wearing a Desian helmet at the last second before she threw her dagger, otherwise it would have ended up in his chest or eye. 

He chewed a chunk of rabbit slowly, watching his dining companions as they argued over the merits of killing every Desian they saw versus their on-going, continued survival. Watched as his friend was more animated and lively than he had seen in a very long time. Oh, to someone who didn't know Kratos, he would have been just shy of a block of wood. But, Yuan mused, the monotone had lightened and the eyebrows were moving again, even if just to pinch together in theoretical pain as he said, "Anna, they are going to find us if we keep this up."

Anna snorted loudly, entirely unrepentant as she stabbed a piece of meat on her plate, shook it at Kratos from across the campfire, "Not if we kill them first," and promptly shoved the whole thing in her mouth. Her new key crest gleamed in the fire's light from the back of her hand.

Oh yes, Yuan smothered a cough at the long-suffering look on his friend's face, he was beginning to see how centuries of apathy was broken. The real question now was just how hard Anna must have hit Kratos with the bonfire of her personality and life.

Just enough, perhaps, to rekindle Kratos' own. 


	3. Drabble 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuan offers advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I have other fics I should be writing but this one was neglected so I sought to fix that. : D
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

**Drabble 3**

Anna, Yuan was coming to understand with each visit, no more trusted him than she trusted Kratos. She rarely turned her back on either of them, and the darkening bags under her eyes spoke to sleepless nights. The human would keep both of them in her line of sight, tensing any time Kratos’ hand drifted to his sword or moved just a hair too quickly. 

It was odd behaviour for someone who had been rescued to have towards their rescuer. 

He mentioned it briefly to his friend, passing over an up-to-date map with suspect Desian patrols for the foreseeable future. As days stretched to months since the partial destruction of the Asgard Ranch, the search for the Angelus Project and the wayward Seraphim grew only more desperate. How long until the searching pushed from desperation to surrender was anyone’s guess. Kvar was a dog with a bone and still smarting from everything that had happened right under his nose. 

“I didn’t.” Kratos rolled up the map with practiced ease and tossed it into the campfire. A precaution, lest they get caught with it. Such a map would be damning evidence that they had help from within Cruxis. Yuan had no intention of showing his hand just yet. The rest of the supplies had been carefully chosen for generic appearances. Hard to trace. “She escaped and I caught up to her.” 

“You didn’t plan it together?”

It was back. The faint twitch of a smile. Missing for three millennia and a relief to see once more. Kratos shook his head. 

Yuan glanced at the slight woman tending to supper. She had regained some weight, filling in the hollows of her cheeks and her clothes. Life on the run had tanned the sickly pallor from her skin. A little closer to the beauty Yuan figured she might have been before the Ranch. Marred only by the tiredness of her eyes. 

Botta had been mistaken then- Kratos had nothing to do with the destruction of the Asgard Ranch. It had been all Anna. “So the explosion…?”

Kratos shrugged, faint smile in place, “As Anna told me later, ‘Oops’.”

“‘Oops’?” Yuan repeated. “It wasn’t intentional?”

Another shrug, “Ask her for the details.” 

He didn’t get a chance until after supper when Kratos left for a quick patrol of the woods. Without much fanfare, Yuan collected the wooden plates and utensils began cleaning them in the stream, kneeling beside Anna as she scrubbed at the cast iron frying pan. Aside from a glance, as if confirming his location was where she thought he should be, Anna ignored him.

She probably wouldn’t appreciate him trying to be delicate about the situation. All the same, Yuan kept his voice quiet, “How did you escape the Ranch?”

Anna froze for a second, then dunked the frying pan back into the running waters. “Why do you want to know?”

Because it meant that the Ranches had a weakness inmates would access. That kind of knowledge would make it easier to create a diversion, easier still to take down the Ranches from the inside and make it look like a human uprising instead of an inside job. Or something that could be ‘discovered’ and provide a way for his Renegades to climb the ranks. Filling the upper echelons of Cruxis with much needed allies. “Kratos told me he didn’t help you escape, which means you destroyed a Ranch.” 

She hummed, and scrubbed a particularly tough spot with vigor. “Kvar had me on a different cycle than the rest. It wasn’t hard to learn the routine of the guards. On my way to Kvar for a… session, they were doing maintenance on a machine, I don’t even know what it was, but they were adamant it had to be fixed quickly. 

“Then one day they were distracted. Some hotshot was coming by to inspect the Ranch and the guards weren’t paying attention. I picked the lock to my cell, freed the others and threw a tool into the machine they had been fixing. I got into the vents, followed it to the outside and was already in the forest when the explosion happened.”

Anna didn’t know. 

He had too many years of keeping his thoughts away from his expression to let his surprise show. Kept cleaning the dishes until they were ready for the next meal. Did she truly not realize the ‘hotshot’ inspecting the Ranch was the same person she traveled with now? “And Kratos?”

“I came across him in the woods. He said he was going to bring me back. I told him that wasn’t happening. We had a disagreement. I convinced him otherwise.” She looked at him then, brown eyes wary. “Then you showed up a month later with a key crest.” 

Oh to have been a bird in a tree during that confrontation. It did leave a problem though. At this moment, the Angelus Project was protected by a Seraphim, even if she didn’t know it. With set check-ins that Yuan could follow up on. That information, should it ever come to light in a less than controlled manner, might have consequences. If Anna were to separate from Kratos it would be problematic. She’d be just shy of a sitting duck for the Desians combing the countryside for her. 

Cruxis was in upheaval. A project they had invested years into was gone; there was a power vacuum at the highest level as people scrambled to keep the Sylverant side of things running smoothly; the lack of explanation to the disappearance of a Seraphim and the accompanying rumours sowed even more unease. Throughout it all, hidden by the chaos, Renegades were embedding themselves deeper into the system. The successful capture of the Angelus Project would be a celebrated victory- one that Yuan did not want to give Yggdrasil. 

No. He had to keep Kratos and Anna together and out of Cruxis’ folds. The longer the chaos in the upper ranks continued, filtering down to the line and file membership, the weaker Cruxis would be. 

“I have known Kratos since we were children,” Yuan began quietly, setting the plates on the grass. “He is stubborn, and often acts with his heart instead of his head. And, for better or for worse,” He met Anna’s wary gaze with his own, the frying pan in her hands forgotten, watching her expression for a reaction, “he is your best chance of making it through this alive.” 

Anna grimaced, “The situation’s that dire is it?”

She needed to see Kratos a little closer to the human he was rather the image she had built up in her head, the one that kept her wary of him. “Where you have to rely on a man I once saw try and swat a fly and end up in a river. Yes, yes it is.” 

His reply had the desired effect: Anna laughed, bright and hearty as her whole frame shook, “No- Kratos?”

“The same. He missed the fly too.” They had been so young then. Before they had met Martel and Yggdrasil. Just two young swordsmen, exploring the world. Things were clearer then. Easier, in some ways. 

Anna shook her head, a smile wide on her face. Finishing her task, she grabbed the plates and set them into the frying pan, and stood up.

Yuan followed her on the way back to camp and waited. Waited for the fire to die down. Waited for Anna to roll over in her bedroll and fall into a restless sleep. Waited for Kratos to return. 

When his friend and peer slipped back into the small campsite, Yuan regarded him critically. Being on the run had improved his disposition. Or perhaps it was something more simple, something that had been missing. Companionship. Kratos regarded him coolly. “Yuan.”

Elvish flowed in response. A precaution if Anna was a better actress than he thought, _“You need to tell her.”_

The neutral expression, the one that Yuan had grown to hate over the years, slammed into place. _“What are you talking about?”_

_“She needs to know that you were the one inspecting the Ranch, and she should hear it from you before she hears it from someone else.”_ Like Kvar. If that man realized that crevice existed between the two, he’d drive a wedge into it and break them apart. Better to get it out in the open before they couldn’t.

Yuan turned to the edge to leave; he had already overstayed. “I have duties to attend to. Unless I hear otherwise, I’ll assume you two haven’t killed each other or managed to get yourselves captured.” He hesitated a step. “Good luck.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed, please leave a comment or come say 'hi' on[ Tumblr!](https://basicallyanidiot.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a chatty author and love comments- please feel free to leave one if you like! I will respond. 
> 
> Or come say 'hi' on[ Tumblr!](https://basicallyanidiot.tumblr.com/)


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